Top book writing advices? Like similes, metaphors show the relationship or commonality between two objects or actions. Unlike similes, however, metaphors do not contain the words “like” or “as” in the comparison. In addition, metaphors describe the object or action in a non-literal way. In other words, metaphors equate two objects or actions just for the sake of comparing, even though the two things are not literally the same. Some examples of metaphors would be “The shark’s teeth were daggers ripping through flesh.” Or “Her hair was a winding path of intrigue.”
The best form for your poem will depend on what it’s about and the mood and feelings you want to create in the reader. The length of the line can make the reader go faster or slower, change the look of the poem on the page, focus attention on certain words. You may decide to incorporate other structural elements such as a certain number of syllables per line, a regular meter, or a rhyme scheme. All of this should work with, and contribute to, the poem’s meaning.
What are you writing about Rachel Rabbit White? Maybe I’m thinking less, or thinking of the reader less. Or I’m just feeling more, editing less. One of my poems begins, “This year I’m sick of thinking.” I am trusting what I call my cord to the heavens, my cord to the below, to muse. I’ve become simple. I’m writing sexual poems. I’m an unenlightened woman.
The topic of our conversation is Rabbit White’s aesthetically and conceptually rich debut full-length collection of poetry, Porn Carnival. Rabbit White is a sex worker, and much of the poetry in this book is about her experiences in that line of work. Speaking with her is similar to the experience of reading her writing, which is heady, very coy, and curious. A poem like “Monologue Beyond Midnight,” which is a wry retort to an idea from Nietzche’s The Gay Science, is a cross section of Rabbit White’s humor, anger, and deep intuition of sound and texture. Rabbit White walked Vogue through her poems, her activism and advocacy, and the idea of inhabiting multiple personas for your art and your work. Read additional information on Rachel Rabbit White.
I met Rachel Rabbit White last December. Her first collection of poems, Porn Carnival, had just come out the month before. I’d read an article about the release party, about some angel dust, a little cake-sitting, a DJ, and then something like “Rachel Rabbit White is a sex worker.” It all seemed glamorous and no-fucks-ish. And this was about poetry. Someone told me the book was good. It was getting a lot of attention. So I read it. It was fierce. It was pure. It stayed with me. It was in earnest, and yet there was no discounting the technique. The lines were as elegant as they were painful. Their intentions were as direct as they were dynamic in their complexities. It wasn’t the work of a dilettante. I haven’t gone back to check, but I think there’s only one hyacinth in Porn Carnival. And no one gets bored to death by what existential crises overtake a body in the organic co-op of whatever town Bard College is in. It isn’t that type of book. You get lines such as “these girls were at the wrong orgy,” titles such as “In the Heart-Shaped Jacuzzi of my Soul.” Which isn’t to say it’s all so… rowdy. On god, she reminds me most of Octavio Paz. Still, it’s a book about sex work, mainly.